


you keep me strong when i can't carry on.

by LLReid



Series: kamilah’s forever. [4]
Category: Bloodbound (Visual Novels)
Genre: Canon LGBTQ Character, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Kamilah is not a dog person and she thinks algebra is StUpId, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Female Character, LGBTQ Female Character of Color, LGBTQ Themes, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Romantic Fluff, Same-Sex Marriage, Sibling Love, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Vampires, request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:14:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29706651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Inspired by; Saving Grace by Kodaline.~~~~“We’re all probably going to pass out in the living room again tonight. You know that, right?,” Anastasia sighed happily.“Mhm,” she hummed, nuzzling the crook of her neck. “If I wake up in the morning with that bloody dog’s paw in my face once again, I will not be pleased.”“Leave poor Dobby alone,” teased Anastasia as she stroked her hair. “He just loves you, that’s all.”“Well I could do with it loving me less. I do not appreciate having my shoes stolen on a regular basis or the casual conversation mortals at the dog park seem to always try to make with me now that I’m walking a golden retriever!”Anastasia snorted. “They must think he makes you seem more approachable.”
Relationships: Kamilah Sayeed/Anastasia Sayeed, Kamilah Sayeed/Main Character (Bloodbound)
Series: kamilah’s forever. [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108751
Comments: 12
Kudos: 22





	you keep me strong when i can't carry on.

**Author's Note:**

> Instagram Prompt: hi so im struggling alot with online school and having to stay home all the time. my family isnt like kami and annies family so could you write something where maybe theres a pandemic and they have to keep jax and zahra at home and help them with school and stuff. 👀 they seem like really great parents. lots of fluff please.

When yet another pandemic had struck the mortal world, Kamilah had not been surprised in the slightest. Mortals never learned and once again their world had come screeching to a halt and they’d actually had the audacity to act surprised about it— only this was not like the other pandemics that she’d lived through. This time, she was a mother. This time, the responsibility of running a multibillion dollar company and taking charge of two eleven year old children’s schooling fell upon her shoulders.

Well... the educational aspect of keeping their two children’s daily routine as intact as possible tended to fall more on Anastasia’s shoulders than hers. The education system was so different now than when she’d been a girl that she found herself paying just as much attention to Anastasia as their children were when she inevitably had to do their teacher’s job better than the teacher was actually doing it.

“So what if I don't learn algebra?,” Zahra practically wailed as she braced her head in both of her hands at the dining room table. She was a stubborn girl who — just like Kamilah — could not stand to have her pride wounded, so she sounded so pissed off and angry that the admission she was struggling with something had been torn from her that she had to battle the tears spilling down her cheeks. “Mommy, mama never learned algebra in Egypt and she turned out perfectly fine! Auntie Lily says in real life there is no such thing as algebra and it’s just something the government makes us learn to make us conform!”

“Someday schools will be open again,” Anastasia said evenly, her patience and her kindness once again leaving Kamilah in awe. “Things will be normal. You need to do your work now for when that happens so that you don’t fall behind.”

“That's never going to happen,” Zahra sobbed in her frustration at not picking it up as quickly as her brother had. “And even if schools do open up somewhere, they're not going to open up here in Manhattan. There aren't enough mortals left because they were all too dumb to wear masks and got sick.”

“That’s not true,” Anastasia soothed whilst rubbing her back. “Most mortals who can have left the city for now to be where there are less people, sweetheart. Yes, a lot of people have died. Yes, a lot of people are sick— but life is not over and Raines Corp is very close to finalising a vaccine.” She paused and glanced at her and Jax sat on the opposite side of the table. “There are many families that are like us, both mortal and vampire, holed up at home, making do until times get better.”

“But what do I need this for in real life?,” Zahra prodded. “Why do I need to know what x equals and how to get rid of the brackets in equations that mean nothing that will help me when I’m grown up— it’s stupid that we have to learn this stuff instead of useful things like how to do taxes and other adult stuff we actually have to know!”

“You won’t need it a lot in your day-to-day life if you don’t plan to follow mommy’s footsteps into a scientific career,” Kamilah confirmed. “However, it is considered general knowledge that colleges require you have basic level of competency in in order to attend. That is why you must learn it.”

“I can explain to you why algebra is useful if you really want me to. But that is not what algebra is really for.” Anastasia moved her fingers gently on Zahra’s temples, calming her down. “It's to keep what is in here healthy. PE for the head. And the great thing is you can do it sitting down.”

“It’s really easy, Zahra,” Jax said in an attempt to be encouraging. “You just multiply by the number on the outside—“

“But there is more than one number sometimes!,” Zahra yelled tearfully before burying her face in Anastasia’s chest. “Whoever thought mixing letters and numbers was a good idea was a foolish imbecile of a mortal who deserves to be stabbed in the eyes!”

That was a point they could agree on. Unlike her wife, who found any sort of complex mathematical problem a thrilling adventure, Kamilah simply could not understand the point in trying to find out the value of x, or any other random letter these mortal textbook writers thought it imperative children learn how to find. Anastasia could look at these problems and know which formula she needed to use with no trouble at all, and she could always solve even the most complicated looking ones correctly without a calculator— whereas she did indeed feel like stabbing someone in the eyes for thinking up this subject.

The sheer audacity for someone to actually concoct this drivel was just astounding.

In her mind, algebra was the offer made by the devil to the mathematician. The devil that said: I will give you this powerful machine, it will answer any question you like. All you need to do is give me your soul. There was something about algebra that she herself just could not figure out. Polynomials, derivatives, quadratic equations, she truly saw no absolute value in them. A bunch of irrational numbers with square roots and exponential functions— really, what was the use in it?!

They were only a month into this homeschooling thing, and she was secretly planning to start a real protest movement, one to have X and Y removed from the alphabet. Z was also suspect as far as she was concerned... damn it! They put a man on the moon and had people living in space constantly; could they not simply find some way to end the scourge of algebra?

However, Anastasia may have whacked her with the nearest available pillow had she to voice that out loud. In her wife’s mind, music was to the heart what mathematics was to her mind. To a scholar like her, mathematics was the most beautiful sort of music.

“Zahra,” Anastasia said, drawing her attention to a blank page in her notebook where she’d written down an equation: X-2=4. “In this case, X is 6. Right? It is really that simple. The letter X just means ‘we don't know this yet’ and is often called the unknown or variable.” She paused to make sure she was following and seeing that she was, she continued, “Your teacher wants you to show your workings so she knows that you understand how to balance equations rather than simply writing ‘X=6’ as your answer. In some of the tests you’ll do in school, you actually get points for showing the correct solutions even if your answer is wrong.”

“Well that’s dumb,” Zahra grumbled.

Anastasia rubbed her back supportively and took a sip out of the trendy glass mug filled with green tea rested on the table. “So to balance the equation out we have to work out what to remove to get X and we remove it by doing the opposite of what’s written, so in this case adding is the opposite of subtracting... and we do it to both sides, like this.”

Everyone’s eyes focused on Anastasia’s left hand as she wrote neatly on the paper.

“We want to remove the ‘-2’, so we do the opposite. Which would be...”

“Adding 2?,” Zahra said softly.

“Exactly,” Anastasia beamed. “So we do it to both sides. If we add 2 to -2, what do we get?”

“Um... zero?”

“Yes, exactly,” Anastasia smiled, “and if we do the same to 4, we get...”

“Six.” Her brow furrowed. “But what the point of adding when we can just write six.”

“To keep the balance,” Anastasia said. “With these sort of equations we must always do the same thing on either side of the equals sign.” She tapped the purple sparkly gel pen she’d written in against the paper. “And you always lay it out just like this, taking a new line for every calculation that you do, then finishing with whatever letter you have to find followed by an equals sign and your answer.” She glanced between both children. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, mommy, I get it,” Jax said as he continued working on the slightly more complicated puzzles in his workbook.

“I understand it better now,” Zahra replied sheepishly. “Mrs. Emery makes everything more difficult with her dumb mortal explanations of things.”

“Before we go back to doing your class work, I want you to solve this one for me,” Anastasia said whilst writing out another puzzle for her to solve. X+5=12. “Just like I did with the first one, alright?”

“Okay,” Zahra said, taking the pen from Anastasia’s hand.

“You can do this,” Anastasia assured her. “I’m right here if you need me.”

Without another word their daughter slipped her tiny right hand into Anastasia’s left and went about writing out her calculations. Kamilah watched on with bated breath, silently praying to whichever gods were listening that there would not be another prepubescent meltdown over these bloody numbers and letters.

She was supposed to be supervising Jax but she hadn’t the slightest idea if he was doing the assignment correctly or not. Whilst Anastasia had been quietly tutoring her in the subjects she’d never learned so that she could confidently try to help out with homework, she was no expert.

It was at times like this she found herself especially glad to have married such a patient woman, as she knew many parents would’ve lost their temper the first time a textbook had been thrown across the room in a tearful fit of frustration. Yet her beloved had made no move to stop Zahra’s reaction when she couldn’t understand the subject and had stopped her from intervening, whispering to remind her that Zahra had her nature and that it was better she be allowed to let out her frustrations however she needed to rather than bottling them all up.

In her eyes, Anastasia did and said all the right things in difficult moments like this. She was naturally empathetic and deeply introspective, so she always seemed to know instinctively what to do when someone was hurting. She said things that went straight to the heart, and even better, they always inspired the one thing that she'd once given up along time ago. Hope.

She knew that as parents they simply could not control everything, as their children were two people entirely separate from them with their own feelings to be respected without condition. They could not control how they felt about things. Or what made them tick. They could only control how they chose to react, how they acted, and how they thought and felt as they helped their children through difficult times.

“X is 7,” their daughter said hopefully, glancing at Anastasia with wide eyes. “Right?”

Anastasia nodded and gave her a high five. “Right. That’s exactly right. You did it, sweetheart. Well done.”

Zahra bounced excitedly up and down in her seat as Jax burst into a round of applause, which Kamilah and Anastasia both joined in on.

“I’m sorry for getting mad,” she said after a moment.

“You don’t have to be sorry for getting mad, it’s perfectly normal to get upset and frustrated when something new is difficult to understand right away,” Anastasia assured her. “You can get mad all you need to but what I don’t want to see you do is convincing yourself that you can’t do something just because you don’t get it right the first time or need a little extra time focusing on the basics before moving onto more advanced stuff. Needing some extra help is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s just like your psychic training in that the more you practice, the better you’ll get and the easier it will become. Okay?”

Zahra nodded sheepishly. “Okay, mommy— did you ever struggle to learn this stuff?”

“I never struggled with maths or science,” Anastasia said, “but I struggled a lot with learning English when I first went to school in England. The only practice I’d had before that was saying my name, listing my age, and my favourite colour in primary school year after year. I had no real idea how to carry a conversation and the accents were so confusing that I hadn’t the faintest idea what people were saying to me for a good year or so.”

“You’re really good at it now,” Zahra smiled.

“That’s because I’ve had lots of practice.” She tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear. “You’ve seen me still make mistakes sometimes or forget certain words, but that’s alright because I’ve got you three to keep me right... and when I do make mistakes I just try to learn from them so that they don’t happen again.”

If Kamilah hadn’t already been head over heels in love with this woman, that alone would’ve done it. Every time she heard her treating their children like actual people deserving of respect and not mere things to be moulded into miniature versions of themselves the way a lot of parents did, she fell a little more in love with her.

“Never be afraid to tell us when you are struggling with anything,” she added, looking between the children. “No matter how ashamed you might feel. We’ll never judge you and will always do all that we can to help.”

“Okay, mama,” Jax smiled. “But I think we’ll go to mommy for math help and then come to you when somebody’s ass needs kicked.”

She snorted and nodded in agreement. “Yes, indeed, I believe that would be the wisest course of action. Truth be told, I am as bewildered as you with this drivel... and find the use of clip art on the worksheets is nowhere nearly as soothing as your teacher intended it to be.”

At that they all shared a laugh and reached into the open packet of gummy bears rested in the middle of the table at the same time. Despite how difficult it was staying at home whilst simultaneously trying to work, manage all the childcare duties, support Anastasia in trying to come up with a vaccine to the virus ravaging the mortal world, do household chores, and focus on these school lessons, it was in moments like this that Kamilah found she didn’t miss normal life at all. 

Her wife and children were the only three people in the world that she liked all the time and never seemed to grow exhausted by the way literally every other person exhausted her once she reached her limit for social interaction. So in some ways getting to stay home with them all day everyday and only having to say goodbye to Anastasia when she had to go into the laboratories to work was damn near blissful. They didn’t have the worry of catching the illness the way mortals did. Nor was money an issue. So they were pretty damn lucky.

Their luck seemed to continue as the days schooling wore on and there were no more tears from either child. Whilst she took some phone calls and attended some virtual meetings Anastasia supervised Mandarin lessons. Kamilah grew impatient with the mortal’s retelling of what had supposedly happened during Elizabeth I’s dramatic defeat on the Spanish Armada during the history lesson and went about setting the record straight, dazzling her wife and children with the true version of history. She then conducted the PE lessons the school considered vital to their children’s development by having them beat the shit out of training dummies in the dojo and then sprint themselves to exhaustion by running laps around the garden — with their highly excitable golden retriever puppy, Dobby, joining in — whilst Anastasia was at work. Then she had them read their assigned book, The Giver by Lois Lowry, whilst she did more of her own work. Then when Anastasia came home after lunchtime in the afternoon they found out she had brought some equipment from the labs to actually bring their science class to life, knowing that both Jax and Zahra were very visual learners... and being only too aware that her white lab coat did things to Kamilah.

The woman was bloody maddening. 

And Kamilah actually found herself shocked that science actually could be fun. As in order to learn about density and polarity, Anastasia had them each make a lava lamp in a glass water bottle using only water, vegetable oil, food colouring, and alka-seltzer. It was actually a rather hilarious way to end the children’s school day: all four of them dressed up like mad scientists in white lab coats around the island in the middle of the kitchen as the dog skirted around their feet, the children taking detailed notes as Anastasia expanded on their teacher’s lesson and actually made it interesting, all whilst laughing and listening to a playlist of old 80s and 90s songs that had been released before the music industry had gone to shit in the early years of the 00s.

“We should make atomic bombs for our next science class,” Jax said seriously as he dug in the freezer for his favourite carton of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Phish Food. He handed Zahra her favourite flavour, Strawberry Cheesecake, as she stood impatiently behind him. “You could make an atomic bomb, right, mommy?”

“Of course I could,” Anastasia said, pushing herself up to sit on the edge of the island. “Making nuclear weapons isn’t actually that difficult at all and that is why so many countries with dimwitted leaders have them, but it’s morally reprehensible.”

Kamilah snorted in amusement and handed her wife a generously poured glass of shipwrecked 1907 Heidsieck intended for the royal court of Tsar Nikolai II, her all time favourite drink. She’d purchased every available bottle upon finding out how much she liked it.

And her heart rate doubled when Anastasia pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose in thanks.

“Tony Stark used to sell weapons and stuff back when he was a really big asshole,” Zahra pointed out with a spoon loaded with ice cream in her mouth. “People at school say you’re like the real Tony Stark, by the way, because you do really smart things better than other tech companies and that our family is the real Avengers cause we’ve stopped a lot of bad guys from doing really bad shit.”

She’d correct the language if she thought it’d make a difference. At this point she was simply resigned to the fact her offspring swore like Lily Spencer.

“I’m much better looking,” Anastasia shrugged before taking a sip of her drink and wrapping an arm around her shoulders as she stood at her side.

She clinked her glass against hers. “Here, here!”

“You guys are like a romance novel,” Jax said with a chuckle. 

She didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not, as the only ‘romance novels’ their children had indulged in involved teenage wizards and a totalitarian society brought down by a dreadfully bland teenage girl with a bad attitude. Both were hardly riveting love stories, in her opinion.

"You read that stuff?,” Zahra snorted. 

"Why the hell did you ask the question like that?,” Jax pouted with his mouth full of ice cream, annoyance evident in his tone and expression. 

"You just didn't seem the type," Zahra shrugged. “Comic books are much better than those books you read because the characters are more badass. Like, X-Men are the best ones, I think.”

Jax flipped her the bird, and both she and Anastasia had to bite their lips to keep from laughing, as they’d heard this debate a million times. Superhero Comic Books vs. Dystopian Fiction. If they once again brought manga books into the argument, she’d sooner fall on her own blades than try to referee the fight that would ensue.

Zahra was easily a full four inches shorter than Jax and was often mistaken for his younger sister despite being the elder of the two by six minutes and forty seconds, but she also looked like she had the confidence to take on anyone who dared even think about insulting her beloved comic books. She might even kick his ass, had he to bring certain characters into the discussion. 

"I'm tempted to shove one of my romance novels up your ass,” Jax teased. "But I love my books too much to desecrate them like that, I'll settle for my converse when I kick your ass." 

“Nobody is kicking anybody’s ass,” Kamilah deadpanned. “Both of your opinions on what makes good literature are valid.”

Zahra sighed and held up her hands in surrender, wiggling her fingernails that were painted a sparkly electric blue. "I won't say another word. Romance novels are great. I love romance novels. I think everyone should read them— but we can all agree anime is objectively better than any sort of book. Right?”

“Right,” Anastasia and Jax said at once.

All eyes fell to Kamilah and she playfully rolled her eyes. She had never actually consented to watching these cartoons yet somehow she was now able to hold an intelligent discussion about various titles. Attack On Titan, Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood were her favourites that she would never, ever actually admit to having enjoyed.

“Yes, whatever you say,” she sighed wistfully. “Anime is the superior form of entertainment.”

“We should do movie night and watch Tokyo Ghoul,” Jax said. “Can we? Please?”

“We should build a fort with blankets and stuff first,” Zahra suggested. “If we promise to make the bed really nice again afterwards can get the mattress from the guest bedroom to lay on in our fort while we watch it?”

She glanced at Anastasia to gage her opinion on the matter and saw no hesitation in her eyes. “Go on then,” she chuckled, “but be warned that I will be highly unamused if the dog pees on it.”

“He’s toilet trained now, mama,” said Jax as he scooped the slobbering golden retriever pup into his arms. “He wasn’t last time and he feels really bad about wetting the bed.”

She simply hummed in response as the children ran off with their ice cream and the furry little creature named after an elf— that she somehow wound up walking far too often for her liking after stating numerous times she wouldn’t when she’d somehow been roped into adopting it. 

Dogs. Anime’s. Forts made of blankets. This was her life now... and she loved it.

The love she felt for her family made her a more patient person. It made her hopeful.

She’d spent so much time being resentful and lamenting the circumstances of her life, but it was true now that she wouldn’t change a single thing because then she would have never known Anastasia’s love. Or the love of her children. She still didn’t always believe she deserved their love or the light they’d brought to her life, but she wanted it because with them her life was filled with sunshine and joy. She did not ever wish to go back to those lonely shadows she’d known before.

“We’re all probably going to pass out in the living room again tonight. You know that, right?,” Anastasia sighed happily.

“Mhm,” she hummed, nuzzling the crook of her neck. “If I wake up in the morning with that bloody dog’s paw in my face once again, I will not be pleased.”

“Leave poor Dobby alone,” teased Anastasia as she stroked her hair. “He just loves you, that’s all.”

“Well I could do with it loving me less. I do not appreciate having my shoes stolen on a regular basis or the casual conversation mortals at the dog park seem to always try to make with me now that I’m walking a golden retriever!”

Anastasia snorted. “They must think he makes you seem more approachable.”

“I fully intend to have my daggers on display the next time I somehow wind up being the one to go out with him— the amount of times I have been called ‘dude’ by young college aged mortals who have far too much confidence for people who treat their dogs like children is simply unacceptable.” She drained the rest of her glass. “The world has gone mad, Annie.”

Anastasia kissed her lips to placate her. She kissed her as though she were starved for her. Like she'd been held away from her and had finally broken free. It was the kind of kiss that had lived only in her fantasies before knowing her. No one had ever made her feel so... consumed. It was the sort of kiss that reiterated the fact that she’d never have to beg Anastasia for anything. If she asked her for the moon, she’d find a way to fetch it for her.

When they broke apart The Bloodkeeper gave a short negative but extremely amused motion with her head. And then spoke words, so sweet, like a cool northern breeze blowing through the air, “You’re adorable when you start ranting and you don’t even realise it.”

It was almost her undoing.

That damn word. Adorable.

Her cheeks immediately flushed red and she let out a low grumble that was a clear sign to literally everyone else in the world they were about to get stabbed. “I am terrifying.”

“Yes, yes,” Anastasia giggled. “You’re absolutely terrifying, sweetheart— how about every time someone calls you ‘dude’, I eat you out to make it all better?”

She froze and her face lit up into a highly amused expression that nobody else had ever managed to draw from her. “That would certainly ease any residual suffering. Yes... I like that idea very much.”

The ancient vampire gently tipped her face toward hers and kissed her. Like always, the world around her seemed to stop moving. No, the world became Anastasia, only her Annie. Kissing her was as mind-blowing as ever, full of that same passion and need she had never dared believe she’d be capable of feeling before finding her. 

She wrapped her arms around her and pulled her in closer, so that she was standing between her parted legs as she held her right on the edge of the counter. She didn’t care about anything else in that moment. All that mattered was that she was with her Annie and their children’s laughter could be heard from the living room. Her wife. Her partner in crime. Her whole world.

She knew without a shadow of a doubt that her wife burnt for her. That in all the years they’d been together she could not stand to go a day without touching her, holding her, caressing her. She was an excellent lover, the best she’d ever had in every regard. She was a woman who pleased her even when she was not doing anything at all.

She didn’t know how long they stayed there kissing. The world around her was just too far gone to keep any reliable account of time. Time had stopped altogether. She was awash in the feel of Anastasia’s familiar body against her’s, in her floral scent, and in the taste of her lips. That was all that mattered.

“You mean everything to me,” she murmured, her lips brushing Anastasia’s with every word as their breaths mingled. The connection between them the most tangible, overpowering thing she’d ever felt in her entire life. “Maybe I didn't always know what I was missing, but it was you. Always you.”

“You mean more to me than I even have the words to explain, Kami. I love you so much.”

Her ancient heart fluttered in her chest. She loved her. As deeply as it was possible to love another person. And God, she wanted her. Every day. In this life she had become as much a part of her as she would be of her in turn. “I love you, too, my angel.”

~ fin.


End file.
